Tory leadership race coronation or funeral
Graham Norton summed up the current state of British politics quite nicely.
Penny Mordaunt for party sake
Rishi Sunak for country’s sake
Boris Johnson for fuck sake
Sense of duty
The late Queen Elizabeth ii had a sense of duty and devotion to public service. All three candidates to be prime minster lack that sense of duty. To make matters worse three candidates don’t have much political capital or skills required. Judging from past behaviour here, don’t know much about what they want to do. Only two have officially declared to be running with Boris in the shadows.
We don’t know what they plan to do or if they understand the challenges ahead. None of them would want to be hostage to fortune during a short race. None of them has taken responsibility for making things worse. Conservatives have decided to rage pointless culture wars over doing real supply-side reforms and chased easy sugar highs on tax cuts. None of them shows even any sense of public duty. Does anybody of them deserve the job not really?
Posh, clown and token figure
Rishi wealthy posh bloke, born for the job but not suited for it. Rishi has shown himself to be pretty awful at politics at times. Inexperienced with naivety, ideology is somewhat known. Therefore is viewed as the safe pair of hands, however like his party is trapped in contradiction against reality.
Penny’s values are well unknown, she has moved positions to suit the room. Penny is similar to Rishi but full of contradictions. Ideology changes depending on the weather, liar like Boris in many ways. She only here as a token figure making sure she gets a seat at the table.
Boris’s sense of duty is only to enrich himself, he got removed as prime minister due to his behaviour not long ago. Boris well he lazy, deeply arrogance proven liar smart at playing politics. His performance is like a clown or fool, opportunist who plays the fool. The writing is on the wall when comes to Boris being around. Both Penny and Boris are proven liars who play the game. Everybody is deeply flawed and with huge downsides.
On balance, Rishi is the least worse option.
A new clown is in town
Gather all around, there’s a new clown in town
He’s preaching for a change but theres nothing going down
So bring all your gold and forgiveness will be sold
And if you’re number seven he will send you straight to heaven.
None of the candidates is being honest about what is facing the UK at the moment.
The new prime minister is being given a huge poison chalice. Conservative party’s legacy for the last 12 years not fixing the roof while the sun was shining. Wasting a decade or more of low-interest rates by not investing back into the economy. So much time has been wasted we’re unprepared. The UK lacks resilience and capacity against supply shocks. Therefore leaving the UK exposed to current weather events and leaving us with creaking, public services. Rebuilding is going to be costly and take time. Taking the UK on early retirement, damaged the UK reputation and left us isolated.
Job at hand and tough choices ahead
The job at hand is dealing with the current crises and maintaining the state. Dealing with the dysfunctional bits that not currently working. At the moment most of the UK state is dysfunctional. Failing or flat-out falling apart. Void of leadership with long-standing issues must be dealt with. At the same time levelling with the public just how bad things could get. Therefore requires leadership flexible thinking and doing whatever it takes. The damage they have done means the response has less fiscal firepower. Liz Truss has shown if the UK wants to provide more financial support it needs to increase taxes. Pressure is already massive and only going to grow. Government is unpopular now before most of the pain is yet to come.
The only bit of good news here is unlikely the Northern Ireland protocol is getting replaced and the trade war starts.
Stability and credibility
Stability and credibility are in short supply, and the kindness of strangers has finely run out. Rebuilding credibility and providing some sort of stability is going to be important. The age of disruptions is here, nobody knows when the next supply shock is coming.
What are the challenges ahead?
- Ageing population
- Underfunded public services
- The labour market is shrinking (Covid and NHS waiting list)
- Shrinking tax base
- Political instability
- High current account deficit
- Low growth
- Trade barriers
- Low business investment
- Low wage growth
- Poor productivity
- Climate change
A new prime minister could solve just one of these problems. Living in a fantasy world none of the candidates has engaged with the above challenges. Nobody wants to discuss it or even begin to level with voters. This spells bad news and hints that further political instability is on the horizon. Investors are finally taking notice of the UK’s poor performance, political instability and failure to be serious. Some of these problems are decades old and require serious long-term thinking and solution. Media has been focused solely on debt, ignoring the UK record current account deficit as a far bigger problem.
Worse still the majority of the media is avoiding talking or even thinking about the cost of living crisis. Tories could be preparing for a coronation or a funeral at the next election. Labour need to be preparing for the government if polling stays the same way. Once again worth repeating the worse is yet to come and no easy quick fix.
*High inflation is a problem but is driven by supply shock within the energy market. Expected to decline within next 2 years.